A randomised control trial of the effectiveness of personalised letters sent subsequent to school dental inspections in increasing registration in unregistered children

Background Recent studies have cast doubt on the effectiveness and efficiency of school based dental screening programmes in improving dental attendance or improving dental health. In 2002 the National Dental Inspection Programme was introduced in Scotland which categorises children by their dental health and informs parents of the findings via a personalised letter home and encourages dental registration. In addition, epidemiological data for local and national planning purposes is collected. This replaced an earlier school screening system in Lothian where a generic letter urging registration was sent to children who were identified as not being registered with a dentist. The objective of this study is to compare dental registrations rates among unregistered children in these two school inspection systems with a system where letters were sent home but no dental inspection was carried out.